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Ontario to start over with sex-ed curriculum

By Robert BenzieQueen's Park Bureau Chief

Mon., April 26, 2010

Talk about curriculum interruptus.

The province is going back to the drawing board to redesign its controversial sex education curriculum, but Education Minister Leona Dombrowsky admits the Liberal government has no idea when the teaching plan will be ready.

Dombrowsky said Monday it “would be a very ambitious timeframe” to get any new guidelines for Grade 1 to Grade 8 students in place by September.

That was when Ontario's modernized health and physical education curriculum was to have been launched — until Premier Dalton McGuinty scrapped it last Thursday, 54 hours after socially conservative religious leaders and parents first expressed outrage.

“I have asked officials at the ministry to bring me some options in terms of how we can better engage parents on this issue,” Dombrowsky told reporters. “They are working on that right now, so I don't have any ideas in terms of timeline. What's important is we take the time to do it right.”

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Under the abandoned curriculum, Grade 1 students would have been taught the correct terms for body parts, including genitalia, which can help prevent sexual abuse.

But what sparked the ire of social conservatives was that Grade 3 students would have learned about homosexuality.

Sixth-graders would be taught about masturbation.

In Grade 7, concepts of anal and oral sex would have been introduced.

Dombrowsky did not dispute the merit of the 208-page curriculum, which took two years to prepare and would have replaced guidelines dating back 1997.

But he conceded the Liberals erred by not adequately consulting parents.

“I don't mean to assign any fault — I think we do have a better job to do in terms of getting the accurate information out there,” Dombrowsky said.

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In the House, Progressive Conservative Leader Tim Hudak blasted the government for listening to “so-called experts and elite insiders” instead of parents when it comes to educating children about sex.

“We stand with moms and dads across the province of Ontario,” he said, lambasting McGuinty because “he actually wanted to begin sex education classes with 6-year-olds who are just learning to tie their shoes.”

Transportation Minister Kathleen Wynne, who was education minister until January and oversaw the curriculum revision, was visibly seething at Hudak's barrage.

“That's not true. Come on, Tim,” shouted Wynne, the first openly lesbian minister in Ontario history, heckling that the Tories were using sex education as “a wedge issue.”

Last Thursday, before McGuinty's flip-flop, she had attacked Hudak's party for “aligning yourselves with homophobes” by opposing the curriculum.

New Democrat MPP Rosario Marchese (Trinity-Spadina) said “it's a shame” that there will be no new teaching guidelines any time soon.

“We need to have a curriculum that is up to date and that gives young people ... the information they desperately need,” said Marchese.

“The premier and the government just messed it up.

“They didn't consult properly and there was a certain degree of paternalism, meaning we know best and that was wrong,” he said, insisting that “with some modifications” a revamp could be ready this fall.

Marchese warned it would be “wrong” for the Liberals to delay any changes until after the October 2011 provincial election.

Indeed, there is a growing backlash from some quarters concerned by government's capitulation to the religious right.

A new Facebook group “I Support Sexual Health Education in Ontario” had about 2,400 members as of Monday evening.

It was started by recent Ontario Institute of Studies in Education graduate Andrey Caric, who posted the controversial curriculum, which was removed from government websites last Thursday, so people could make up their own minds about it.

“I was concerned that right-wing fringe groups were controlling the flow of information,” said Caric.

“A lot of the controversy around it isn't grounded in reality,” he said, noting the only references to anal sex, for example, are related to abstinence and preventing HIV.

“I put it on Facebook, because I wanted people to be able to read it,” he said.

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